Every Wednesday. Without Fail. Words Will Be Hated.

Archive for November, 2011

Oh Radisson, what are you like? We see you’re quite partial to a bit of double arrow action, but don’t you think you’ve taken it just a wee bit too far with the lettering in the final item on the old signage there? It’s practically giving us a headache; like when a newsreader wears an inappropriate check on the telly and our eyes go all funny. You managed to spell it correctly the first time, Rad dudes, so what happened? Still, we’ll be back with our Tip-pex, so fret ye not.

Now, we don’t actually hate this particular word, and you know we love a good cuss here at WHW Towers. But when editor Clare spotted this on the back of a cubicle door in some pub toilets in Durham, she was, quite frankly, shocked and appalled. You’d think they were slightly better brung up in such a posh cathedral and university city, right? Wrong. Look at that blatant display of anger not to mention the abuse of a perfectly good swear. Dickhead is one word, silly.

This week, protesters from the Occupy Manchester group have taken over a patch of grass in Spinningfields, largely, we hear, because quite a few members of the group are keen skaters and want to be the first in line when the ice rink comes to town on Friday. Good for them! The anti-capitalism activists have already pitched up in Albert Square and Peace Gardens, and it was at the entrance to that encampment where we spotted this rather fetching sign. It takes us back to that whole apostrophe thing again, doesn’t it? Oh well, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they ran out of spray paint. And we promise to talk about something other than apostrophes in our next instalment. Honest.

Leading on from last week’s rant about the placing of apostrophes, here’s an example of the possessive use of this most lovely of punctuation marks. Or rather it’s not. Perhaps there are a lot of Jonathans who need to park their bicycles in this particular area? ‘Fraid not. Here at We Hate Words, we are privy to the fact that this isn’t the case as Jonathan happens to be a friend of ours and this Bike Park is just for him. Lucky boy. Jonathan’s Bike Park, underlined or no.

Still, a bike park is a lovely idea – a park full of bikes! Imagine! Oh look, that’s cheered us up. Phew.

Ah, doesn’t it warm the cockles to see people spending money on promotional activities during these hard times – then totally pissing on their message with a misplaced apostrophe that makes them look completely unprofessional? And surely it can’t be worse than with the old “it’s” versus “its” cliche of a mistake, especially on a massive hoarding round a building site…

Sigh. For the benefit of those trailing behind in the correct usage of the English language, particularly those employed in the creative industries, let’s go over this one more time. Now, keep up at the back:

It’s = contraction of it is; the apostrophe marks the omission of the letter “i” of “is”.
Its = possessive case, for example: “The car had a dent in the door. Its door was dented” – as in the door belonging to the car had been hit by some clumsy oaf with a supermarket trolley or, depending on the size of the dent, perhaps even another car.

So just remember this, kids: eschew obfuscation. Disambiguation is of the utmost importance. Apart from anything else, you’ll look less like a dick if you get it right.

Let us leave you with this illustration of how the incorrect use of grammar in written text can lead to all kinds of difficulties: capital letters are the difference between “helping your Uncle Jack off a horse” and “helping your uncle jack off a horse”. See where we’re coming from?

We Don’t Really Hate Words

We Hate Words is a weekly magazine about rubbish words.

Don't get us wrong; we don't hate all words. We're writers, so that would be foolhardy. However, there are some words that just stir up trouble. We're here to take those words outside into a dark back alley and rough them up a bit.

So if there's a word you hate, tell us. Think of us as your therapist. We will listen.

Who Are These Darn Word-haters?

Sarah-Clare Conlon is an editor, writer and adventuress. She writes arts blog Words & Fixtures and saucy short stories. She foolishly put herself forward to edit this site. You can stalk her on Twitter via @wordsnfixtures.

Benjamin Judge is the founder of We Hate Words. He abandoned it on the edge of the city in a tattered fruit box. He hears rumours about how it is under new management, but he pays little attention to rumours.

Clare and Ben are two of the five people behind the Flash Mob Writing Competition & Literary Salon and the FlashTag anthology Quickies: Short Stories For Adults, featuring flash fiction from the likes of David Gaffney, Emma Jane Unsworth, Chris Killen, Socrates Adams and Tania Hershman.

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